A Once Crowded Sky: A Novel

By Tom King and Tom Fowler

The superheroes of Arcadia City fight a wonderful war, and play a wonderful game, forever saving yet another day. However, after sacrificing both their powers and Ultimate, the greatest hero of them all, to defeat the latest apocalypse, these comic book characters are transformed from the marvelous into the mundane.

After too many battles won and too many friends lost, The Soldier of Freedom was fine letting all that glory go. But when a new threat blasts through his city, Soldier, as ever, accepts his duty and reenlists in this next war. Without his once amazing abilities, he’s forced to seek the help of the one man who walked away, the sole hero who refused to make the sacrifice— PenUltimate, the sidekick of Ultimate, who through his own rejection of the game has become the most powerful man in the world, the only one left who might still, once again, save the day.

A tour de force debut novel from a former CIA counterterrorism officer, A Once Crowded Sky fuses the sensibility of bombastic, comic-book-style storytelling with modern literary fiction to bring to life a universe of supermen stripped of their powers, newly mortal men forced to confront danger in a world without heroes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atria Books
• Release date: Jul 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781451652024

Tom King

Tom King, Lord King of Bridgwater CH, was Secretary of State for five different departments in the Cabinets of Margaret Thatcher and John Major. He was Secretary of State for Employment during the miners’ strike, and for Northern Ireland during one of the worst periods of terrorism; he was responsible for launching the Anglo-Irish Agreement, a controversial initiative that helped start the peace process. Later, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, King was responsible for the biggest deployment of British troops and heavy armour since World War II. He was appointed by John Major as first Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, overseeing MI5, MI6, and GCHQ, and on the change of government was reappointed by Tony Blair.

Book preview

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2

Ultimate, The Man With The Metal Face #566

Their lives are violence. Month after month after month, they fight a wonderful war, play a wonderful game, forever saving the next day from the next dastardly villain, the next meteor falling from the sky, the next giant monster emerging from his cave, his rock-fists swatting at the heroes rising into the air around him, and Pen slides the spatula under the half-cooked pancake and flips it over. The raw underside splatters wide and spreads across the pan. The circle starts to lose its shape as it falls into itself.

I think I’m doing this wrong, Pen says.

Anna turns from where she’s cutting the strawberries and looks over his shoulder. You’re doing that wrong.

Don’t mock me, he says as he pokes the goo with the side of the spatula. I’m a very powerful man. I could very easily flick this pancake into the sun.

Yeah, you’re still doing it wrong. Anna takes the spatula from his hand and begins to gather the dough back into a credible shape. Pancakes for dinner, poorly cooked pancakes. This is what comes from marrying someone raised by a robot.

Hey, The Man With The Metal Face never poorly cooked anything in his entire life. That the great Ultimate maybe possibly did not pass these skills along to his somewhat less great sidekick is not that poor guy’s fault.

Anna smiles, and the phone rings; Pen looks around, trying to remember where he left the receiver, and she reaches around him and picks it up from the microwave.

Hello, she says.

Did I mention the powerful, sun-flick thing? Pen asks.

She hands him the phone. For you. Puppeteer, I think.

Prophetier?

She rolls her eyes. You think I can keep them straight?

Pen sticks out his tongue and takes the phone. Prophetier’s voice is, as ever, low and cracked. Strength. She’s headed out again. I’m watching her now. Probably to the same place. The alley off of Third. She’s too weak now. They’ll kill her. You have half an hour.

Hello, Proph. How are you?

That’s all I have. A click, and Prophetier’s gone.

Pen puts the receiver to his forehead. Like in the old times, his heart quickens and his senses reach out; the world sharpens. He looks up at his wife and counts the fifty-seven specks of gold in her left eye. On top of them his own features are lightly reflected; he can see the wires on his cheeks begin to glow.

I’m sorry, he says. I’m the only one who can.

I know. She turns back to the pancake. Don’t be too late. You promised to work on your speech tomorrow. The funeral’s coming up.

I’m sorry, he says again, and she turns back to him and hugs him close.

It’ll be fine, she says as she rests into his shoulder. Just be safe. Save the day PenUltimate, then come home and be safe.

Strength, Woman Without Weakness #486

It’s now, and there are three men around her, and they’re moving closer. But she’s not worried. The one nearest to her is battered, scratched, and bald. He has a tattoo slipping around his chin and a gun in his hand that he points with unearned confidence. He’ll be first. She lunges toward him, and he fires.

It’s nine years ago, and there are three men around her. The Big Three: Star-Knight, Ultimate, and The Soldier of Freedom. They have invited her to be the fourth member of the group they’re forming: The Liberty Legion! We will work as one, as a team to defeat our enemies. We are searching for the best to join us. We want you. Her own reflection blankets Ultimate’s metal face. She looks so young.

It’s six years ago, and there are three men around her; villains is what they all call them, one who fires lightning from his eyes, another who transmorphises into an elephant with tusks of fire, and another who can disappear and then reappear before he left. But she’s not worried. She spins and flips and moves as no one has ever moved. They have powers, but they’re weak, and eventually, inevitably, she wins.

It’s twenty years ago, and there are three men around her, and they’re dead. Her father and her two brothers lie still in a house in the suburbs of Arcadia City. Just minutes before, she watched as they dragged her mother away to debase her and kill her. You, you are nothing. You have no strength. We don’t need to hurt you. You’re nothing but a weak little girl. So they left her in her room alone, surrounded by books, stories of princesses kept behind castle walls, and after a while she stops hearing the cries. She’s untouched, but she can’t walk, and she has to crawl over to her father’s body to beg for his forgiveness, to plead with him to remember that she wanted to be strong, but she just couldn’t. She’d tried. She’d tried so hard.

It’s five years ago, and there are three men around her, and one of them just fired a gun. The bullet lashes through the air. But she’s not worried. She reaches out and captures it inside her palm. Slowly to her, but so-very-fast-to-them, she twirls and chucks it at the one behind her. And he goes down. The one with the gun fires again, and she catches that bullet too. Without even looking, she flings it to her side, and another one falls. She glares back to the one with the gun. Come on, she says, one more time.

It’s four years ago, and there are three men around her, two villains and a hero. PenUltimate, Ultimate’s noble sidekick, throws a punch as she throws a kick, and the villains reel back. They’d been dating for four months, and yesterday she’d told him she loved him, told Pen how strong she knew he was, how strong they would be together, forever battling side by side. Today he’d brought her someplace quiet to tell her he was ending it. He wasn’t strong, he said, not like her. He never would be. Before she could cry, they were attacked, and Strength smiles as the villains recover, charge, and her fists again sink into flesh.

It’s ten years ago, and there are three men around her, but she’s not worried. She should be. She’s never done this before, never done anything like this before. One man charges, and she shuts her eyes and flinches, and he slams his fist into her face, and it breaks—the fist, not the face. Her eyes widen. One of the other men gives up and runs away. The one remaining fires a gun at her. And she can see it. She can see the bullet in the air. It hangs, metal against blue sky. She opens her hand, grabs at it, then closes her hand. She unwinds her fingers and looks at the pummeled lead in her palm. She smiles. The bullet clinks to the ground, and the two men run.

It’s six months ago, and there are three men around her. The Big Three: Star-Knight, Ultimate, and The Soldier of Freedom. A light burns blue beneath them and around them. We are the founders of The Liberty Legion; it has to be up to us. There’s only one way to fight this threat. We have to save them; they’ve trusted us, and we have to save them. The Blue will destroy us all. Someone has to be the one. Someone has to carry this burden, absorb the powers of all the heroes, and stop it. Someone has to make the sacrifice. Someone has to die. They look at her with a veiled smirk of pity. It can’t be you. We’re sorry, we won’t allow it. Her reflection blankets Ultimate’s metal face. There are tears in her eyes. She looks pathetic and weak.

It’s two years ago, and there are three men around her, and they lie still. They’re not dead, just unconscious, though they’d be dead if she’d wanted them dead. The CrimeBoss and his top assassins: Heroin and Red Rapist. Their reign ends here. They had gone too far. They had decided to challenge Strength in her city, and their reign ends here.

It’s eleven years ago, and there are three men around her, and they are gods. I am Ra of the Egyptians. I am Odin of the Norse. I am Jupiter of the Romans. We have come back to choose a champion. There is a destiny ahead that will cause the end. Someone must stop it; someone must be the one. One must have The Strength. Only one without weakness can bear this burden. We have scoured the stars to locate such a person. We have found only one. We all have destinies, this is yours. It will be painful, every day it will be painful. But she’s not worried.

It’s now, and there are three men around her, and one of them just fired a gun. She waits to see the metal against the blue, and she reaches out her hand—and the bullet rips through her palm. There’s blood and pain, and she falls. No. She’s back on her knees, but one of them is on top of her. He kicks her in the gut, and she drops to the concrete. Red seeps into her mouth, and he kicks her again. Another of them cracks her in the face with something hard, and she’s gone, but she comes back. Fuck you, she wants to shout, but she’s gagging on something bitter. God, she’s so heavy. She twists onto her back, and she can see the sky and all the stars not hidden by the towers of Arcadia. Her hollowed hand twitches.

Fuck you. I’m Strength. You bastards are weak. All of you are weak. Everyone is weak. Except me. I am Strength. I am Strength. She hears laughter, and she hopes it’s her own.

It’s now, and there are three men around her, and they’re moving closer. But she’s not worried.

Ultimate, The Man With The Metal Face #567

One of them already has his pants down; he’ll have to be first. On the other side of the alley, Pen bends over and selects a particularly jagged rock. Pen cocks his arm and throws. The rock slices into the man’s right cheek, and he topples over scratching at the new blood on his face. The other two look up from the woman held beneath them. They squint into the darkness.

Pen knows them, can read the bubbled thoughts they believe are original. There’s something out there, maybe a few hundred feet away, standing in the dark. One of them points his gun out, but he doesn’t fire. Of course. It’s too far. Too dark.

Pen closes the distance. He keeps to the shadows—even the night has shadows, one of Ultimate’s first lessons. I am metal, and in the day I reflect light to blind my enemies. In the night I must use the dark as I have the light, as a weapon to be wielded against those who try to breed evil into the streets of Arcadia. Jesus, will that voice ever get out of his head?

The gun goes off, but Pen’s not worried. Let him waste his bullets at this distance. People have been firing guns at Pen since before his twelfth birthday, and they’d never managed to hit him; but it gives them confidence, and he lets them have it. Confidence can also be a weapon—that stupid robotic voice again.

Pen nears them, within fifteen feet, and his mind focuses. The fight now is everything. Like countless times before, he’s dragged from his body, replaced by training and experience, by wires responding to countless repetitive drills from an instructor who never felt fatigue, whose artificial joints and muscles couldn’t become raw or worn.

There are fourteen spots on a man that can render him unconscious; there are many more that can kill him. Pen evaluates each of the three attackers in turn: A, B, and C. A has the weapon, but he’s left spots four and eleven clearly open; B is also vulnerable in spot four, and has additionally left seven, eight, and thirteen hanging; on C, who’s still trying to hold back the blood coming out of his face, twelve of the fourteen spots glow. From a shadow no one else can see, PenUltimate once again leaps into action.

A reacts first. He aims his gun and fires, and it’s a good shot. Given the speed of the projectile and the reaction time of the human constitution, dodging the bullet will be impossible. It’s impossible for a regular human to do it. I can’t do it. Then you will have to be better than human, Ultimate replies.

Pen moves, and the bullet whizzes by.

Pen connects with spot four on A, driving a fist into A’s right kidney. The man goes down, dropping his weapon. He shouldn’t have relied on that crutch; he might’ve lasted longer. B starts spouting obscenities as he takes what appears to be some kind of martial arts stance, and Pen approaches him patiently, anticipating the predictable thrust. When it comes, Pen grabs the jutting wrist and bends it back to where it pops. The man shouts out, coiling into the pain, leaving spot eight dangling sweetly in front of Pen. A touch and some pressure, and the man falls.

Pen approaches C, the last one. C’s hands are spread across his face, blood gathering between his fingers. You can’t do this, he says. You fuckers are gone.

C’s pants still hang around his ankles, and Pen strikes hard on spots six and fourteen. The man screeches, lunges back, tripping over his own clothes. He stumbles and drops—his head thumps into the asphalt, and he stays quiet.

Pen scans the alley. Look for backup. Look for the others who first ran and are now ready to return. Look for the ones who think you’re vulnerable now. Look for the danger, and when it comes, end it.

A rat scurries from behind a green Dumpster thirty yards off. Four stories up, a woman three months pregnant closes her window and gives off a disgusted scoff. A camera flashes in the distance, too far to capture a steady photo. Thirty thousand feet above, a rising 777 accelerates past 450 knots. The rat returns to the Dumpster. The area is safe, secured.

Where’s your little windboard, you fucking coward?

Pen is torn from his training. He drops to his knees to check on her. Strength’s hurt. Her hand bleeds onto her shredded shirt. Through the gaps in the fabric, he sees the black bruises that now cover her body. Pen reaches out to her.

Get away—don’t you dare! She’s twitched herself into a fetal position and appears to be struggling to emerge from it, pushing out legs and arms that stretch and then retract. Don’t you ever touch me again. Just get the fuck away.

Alice, let me see it. He tries to move her arm, to look at her hand. She reacts as if he were Burn and jerks away. Alice, Strength, c’mon, please, just let me help.

Fuck you.

He stands, steps back. Spots one to fourteen are on her, and they shine. I can get you help. I’ll get an ambulance.

Fucking coward. She rolls to her side, manages to untangle her legs. No robot daddy around to cart your bony ass around. Think you’re so fucking great, the great and powerful fucking hero.

Look, this isn’t the time. I’m going to call an ambulance.

I don’t need a goddamn ambulance!

Okay, okay, I’m sorry. No ambulance.

Always looking for someone else to do it for you. She sits up and leans against the wall. That why you didn’t show?

Pen bends down and then straightens up again. He looks at her, watches her struggle to treat the wounds, then he looks at the sky, waits for all the heroes to come flying back. That’s the rule. Everyone knows. They all come back. After a while, he walks over to her and sits down next to her, close but not touching.

Fucking coward, she says as she inspects her wounded hand. At least the villains had the decency to kill themselves.

Pen scratches at his shirt, picks at a long scar that runs down his chest. "Can I ask, why is it always fucking coward? Every time I get that these days, it’s always like a, y’know, a fucking thing. I got to say, I don’t really see the connection. It’s not like I was busy copulating while you all were doing the whole defeating-The-Blue thing."

Jokes, she says, removing her shirt to reveal a sports bra underneath. You’re so fucking transparent. She wraps the shirt around her bleeding hand.

You’ve got to stop doing this.

"You’re a fucking coward, because coward doesn’t—she grimaces as she pulls the wrapping tight—doesn’t cover it."

You’re going to end up killing yourself.

You want to know something, Pencil Dick? I’m not mad at you. I do kind of like getting saved; I’m glad that little Prophetier stalker calls you. Bet that’s a shocker, but I am, I like seeing you do your little routine thing, prancing all about. It’s cute.

This isn’t about me! Pen shouts.

Strength stares at him for a few seconds and then laughs. Using the wall as a brace, she inches herself up until she’s above him. She rests for a second, then takes a step forward, scowling as her foot twists into the concrete.

I like you saving me, Strength says, turning toward him. I like how it reminds everyone you didn’t show when we all did. How grand it is that you’ve still got all that special specialness, and we’ve got nothing, that you were the only little piss too scared to help Ultimate. Your Ultimate. I like seeing it. I think you deserve it, I do.

Pen looks up, watches the bruise growing around her left eye, the blood drying on her lips. As always, the robot voice is inside Pen’s ear, berating him, demanding he help her, save her, save the day. Metal wires in his brain hum loudly as they examine every wound on her, as they tell Pen exactly how to fix them all.

Pen bends his head back into the wall. Whatever you want, he says.

She spits blood at his feet. You’re a fucking coward, she says, and, gradually, hampered by all those wounds, she limps away.

He watches her go, not really knowing what to do. He saved her. She would’ve died, and he saved her. What would they do without him?

Hey! he shouts, trying to get her attention. You know Ultimate’s funeral’s finally happening, I’m giving a speech. You probably should try to keep yourself not killed until then.

She’s a hundred feet away, and there’s no light around. But his eyes are good; they’re the only eyes left that are good. It’s how he’s able to see her middle finger wave side to side over the back of her shoulder.

Ultimate, The Man With The Metal Face #568

Thrown in the general direction of a hook, Pen’s jacket crumples to the floor. He’s home. Anna is outside their living room window, sitting on their fire escape, looking out at the lights of Arcadia. He knocks on the wall, and she looks over to him, smiles weakly, then looks back to the night.

A few dirty plates sit on a table in front of the TV, and Pen grabs them and washes them in the kitchen, sweeping pieces of pancake down into the trash. When he’s done, he goes back to the living room and watches his wife watching the sky.

The day he met Anna she was a gray blur set against a placid-blue background. Ultimate was wrestling Hawkhead in the clouds above Arcadia, and the two men slammed into the side of a large office building. A woman tumbled out. Ultimate threw a fist and focused on the fight because he knew she’d be fine. Someone else was looking out for her. Pen unhooked his windboard and glided through the sky, sweeping Anna up in his arms, instantly falling in love, kissing her passionately, longingly.

Or at least that’s the story they’d agreed to tell the kids, because saying they’d met in a bar, hooking up after too many tequila shots, didn’t have the same ring. No, that wouldn’t have done. It needed to be something better, more dramatic.

Eventually she comes back in. Wires in Pen’s eyes point out every line of color in her face, show him exactly how much she cried waiting for him, how she sat alone, worrying about that one bullet he might not manage to dodge. He tries to ignore it all, but he fails.

You’re safe? she asks.

Yeah.

Day saved?

Of course.

She sits on the couch, turns on the TV. He joins her, and she leans into him, pushes her face into his chest. After a while, he tells her what Strength had said, and he laughs. "They always say fucking coward, like I was busy copulating while they were off saving the world." He looks down at her and smiles.

Anna doesn’t laugh, she just looks back at the TV. You could’ve gone with them. I would’ve been fine.

Hey, I retired from all that. What’s the point in retiring if you’re just going to keep showing up?

She reaches over and puts her hand on his. I would’ve let you go.

He tangles his fingers into hers, wraps his arms around her. I know, he says.

3

Mashallah #211

I could give a piss what your little hen-picked husband thinks, you’re coming. The voice is tense, and it calms her. It’s Ultimate, Christ, you’re coming to his funeral. Maybe because it is familiar, maybe because it is different.

Alice, I can’t possibly—

"Strength. You called me that then, you call me that now, all right? Just because the power’s gone doesn’t mean I lost that."

Well, that is fine for you then. Mashallah pauses and allows a crackle to snake through the satellite phone signal. But for me, it is not the same. I am Fatima now. And my husband has a say in my life now, however he was picked, that is not—doesn’t matter. He has said I cannot go.

Fuck that. You’re Mashallah. The beam of light who used to blast all those villains’ asses, God rest them. That’s you.

No. Mashallah tugs at the head scarf bunched along the back of her neck; a seller is coming to the house with some fruits, and she will have to pull it on quickly when he arrives. I am sorry, I am, but no.

All right, enough of that shit. You need to come home.

Alice . . . Strength, you have to understand. I appreciate you. But I love my husband. He’s a good man, and I have to respect him. We are learning to live as a family.

Strength sighs. Okay, look, you of all people know I don’t want to play this card, but, Soldier’ll be there, right? You know that? He’s giving the eulogy along with my dickless ex.

My sister, Mashallah says as she strains to keep her voice sounding effortless, you know, that was . . . that was a young girl’s . . . that was not anything.

Ma, what’s the point in saying that? I mean really.

Soldier doesn’t—I am married now. Soldier does not affect me anymore.

Girl, you know better than most, Soldier affects everyone. All big fancy three of them do. Did.

That’s done. We made our decisions. Soldier is done. I’m done.

Yeah, look, whatever, believe whatever stories’re easiest, and he’ll do the same. All I’m saying is he’ll be at the funeral. And you should be there.

I am with a husband now. A family. Soldier or no Soldier. That’s finished, we’re finished. I don’t fly, it’s done.

Right, when were any of us done? Strength laughs, a strong, fake laugh. Look, if you change your mind, Star-Knight’s paying for all the tickets, like always, so just get him at the usual place, all right? Just come back.

You think it is so easy?

No. I think it’s pretty fucking hard.

The conversation pitters out with nothing solved, like in all of Mashallah’s endless arguments with Strength. Eventually, Mashallah hears her brother answer a seller at the door, and she excuses herself knowing she must go to pick out the best fruit as Khalid will always choose only the ones that are perfectly ripe and the fruit will undoubtedly be spoiled by the time it gets to her table.

The loud haggling over price begins, and her household erupts in Pashto voices. God help us. She recalls the wonder in her heart when she was young, studying her mother shepherding a family a dozen times this size only a few blocks from here. As she pulls the hijab over her head and clasps the material over her face, she reminds herself it takes a woman of exceptional fortitude to keep the chaos from overwhelming them all. She walks toward the door and imagines herself again soaring as a streak of light, a gift of God scratched white across the night sky. She thinks of Soldier. How clear things were then, when she was wrapped in the clouds.

Her voice soon joins the chorus of shouters, and she commends her resolve for choosing her new family and her old life; and in her mind she is already on the way back: she is pulling aloft across the horizon and turning ahead of a westerly wind; and it worries her—never has she been more at ease, never has she felt more grounded.

The Soldier of Freedom #518

The Soldier of Freedom stands in front of a grave, his gun drawn. Pull the trigger.

Next time, he says. Soldier hesitates, licks his lips. Until next time. Soldier breathes in deep.

Though his joints object, Soldier sits on one knee and points his gun into the dirt. He stares for a while at the tip of his pistol, at the metal going into the ground. I’m sorry, he says, and he looks up, takes in the markers that surround him, that tell the story of the Villains’ Graveyard. There’re so many of them. So many men he once fought. So many dead. They almost go on forever.

Soldier’s eyes finally rest back on the headstone in front of him. On top of a curved rock sits a bust of a man’s face: Survivor, Soldier’s ever-ready archnemesis, looking younger than how Soldier remembers him. But then again, the man always did look young for his age.

Survivor was born at the beginning of man, and he had done his best to drown his toe in every puddle of human misery that lay across his path over the last few millennia. He’d been a slave owner both in Egypt and Virginia. When Mongols were popular he was a Mongol; when Nazis were popular, he’d been a Nazi. Only thing he ever gave to this world was a generation of his evil offspring, each competing to be as cruel as the old man, excepting one.

It was death, other people’s deaths, that kept him going. All he ever wanted was another year, and he was always willing to trade whomever or whatever to get that particular commodity. The suffering that came with these transactions didn’t seem to bother him.

Hell, pretty much nothing bothered that villain until Soldier, really. Not until he met a man who also had some history was Survivor ever really stopped.

They seemed to cross each other’s way at least once a month for years on end. Survivor always had some latest scheme, and Soldier was ever willing to sniff it out and, inevitably at the last second, foil it. He’d belted Survivor so many damn times the contours of the man’s face still tingle around Soldier’s knuckles. It’s possible Soldier’s guns, Carolina and California, don’t even need to be aimed at the man: they’d probably find his vulnerable spots by rote memory. But it didn’t matter how many times Soldier’d beat into him, Survivor was back soon enough, killing more, waiting patiently for Soldier to draw again.

How’d Survivor always gotten loose? How’d he always found a way to come back with another damn plot? Survivor’s got a knife to the president’s throat at a UN conference. He wants to disrupt it for some forgotten reason, killed twenty-seven people getting in the door. Pull

Reviews for A Once Crowded Sky

[tobinelliott · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Yet another great premise killed by lousy writing. Couldn't finish this, which pisses me off, because it was a great idea, and with some cool graphic panels thrown in, just like a comic book, it looked like it was a well-thought out package.

Then I started to read it.

In the 56 pages I read, it felt like King randomly forgot sentences or paragraphs. There was a whole lotta missing context at times. I'm sure he thought this was edgy, or mysterious, but it was simply annoying.

However, the final nails in the coffin arrived with two lines of narrative that showed up within pages of each other, and, on the last one, I literally closed the book and said, "Nope. I'm out."

The first was, Felix hasn't touched a drop of alcohol since his last drink.

Not the stupidest line I've read in a book... that would be a toss-up between Tom Clancy's The sun rose promptly at dawn, and Lee Child's It was as distinctive as the most distinctive thing you could think of.

Seriously. He hadn't touched a drop of alcohol since his last drink of alcohol? Seriously? Like, I haven't gone swimming since the last time I went swimming? Isn't that what "last time" means? Lazy ass writing.

Then, a couple of pages later, we get, The cry cries again. Jesus. Let's ignore using the same word twice in a row, but how in the holy hell does a cry cry? Can a singing sing again? Can a scream scream? No. The person making the sound can make it again, but a verb can't verb again.

So, I'm out. I have no idea what the next 300 pages held, but with writing like this, I really don't give a shit anymore.

[chris_el-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Tragi-comic is how this book is described and it is an apt description. I found it somewhat depressing and the ending unsatisfying.

[vampiregirl76 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Arcadia City is in danger once again. This time the superheroes must sacrifice their beloved Ultimate and each of their super powers it's the only way to save everyone from the latest disaster. Each character deals with this in their own way, but it must be done to go on.I love comic books so I was excited about this one. But the fact that it's about superheroes that lose their powers, really peaked my interest. For me this was a good read. I loved the mixture of novel and comic book. A Once Crowded Sky has an old feel of times gone by to it with a great group of POV's. If you're a fan of Watchmen or comic books and superheroes in general, I recommend checking this one out.

[isamoor_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Dec12:Characters: I wrote this much later, but they all still standout. Nice job sir. Well developed and enjoyed.Plot: Pretty well done; nah, compared to others, very well done.Style: Straight Watchmen. In a good way.

[walterqchocobo · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a very clever take on the superhero story. Ultimate, the Man with the Metal Face, sacrifices himself to save the world from a mysterious force called The Blue. However, in order to defeat The Blue, all of the heroes have to give up their power. Except that PenUltimate, Ultimate's sidekick, who walked away from the superhero gig to try to lead a normal life with his wife. Months later, the bombs start falling and the city needs a hero again. What is PenUltimate to do?There were some parts that felt like they could have been explained better and the run-up to the ending seemed a little slow but I really enjoyed this book. The black and white panels at the beginning of each section added a nice touch. Well written and worth a look.

[grumpydan · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

To save the world the superheroes have to give up their superpowers. And such is the premise of this story. But what happens when a new villain threatens their city and world?I like comic books, although not a big superhero fan, but liked the premise of this story. But once I started reading it, it didn’t feel good to me. The superheroes, now living as humans do didn’t create enough excitement in caring about them. I did like the structure as if each chapter was a different issue of a comic book (But this is not a graphic novel). The characters’ development was repetitive (I know he was trying to make a point about comic book heroes), but as a novel I wanted to see it move forward. The ending was unsatisfying and it is what it is. Either you like it or don’t. I didn’t.

[tapestry100 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I don't think it's any surprise around here that I love comic books. They captured my imagination when I was a kid, and 30ish years later, they still capture my imagination. Over the years, the stories have grown up too (at least, I think so), and characters and trends have come and gone, and my interest has waxed and waned, yet I always come back to them. And I hope that they continue to capture my imagination far into the future, because they can seriously just be so much damned fun!So, when I first heard about A Once Crowded Sky, I couldn't wait to get my hands one it. The book blurbs had said that Tom King, a former CIA agent who also worked as an intern at Marvel Comics and DC Comics, has written a book that takes everything that's great about comic books and put it into literary fiction. And you know what? They were right.A Once Crowded Sky is the story of PenUltimate, the last existing superhero in Arcadia City, the only hero to still have his powers and who would still be able to play in the great and wonderful game of superheroes and villains, if there were any left. But, there are not. He is the last. And why is he the last, you ask? Well, all I can say to that is, "Spoilers!". I actually can't go into a whole lot of the plot or storyline in the book, for just that reason. The story plays out as it needs to play out, and I'm afraid that if I were to give anything away, I'd be ruining something. So, I'll just talk about my feelings during and after reading.First off, King plays by the rules of comic books in his story. The heroes fight the villains, fight amongst themselves, save the day, do the impossible, and start all over again next month. In this world, the rules of the comic book and the monthly publishing timeline work to their advantage. This is something that I particularly loved about the book, their inner knowledge that this is how things worked in their universe. All the superheroes understand this, and that's part of what is hard for them, now that their powers are gone. They're very self-aware of their part to play in the grand scheme of their universe, and now that it's gone, they are trying to piece their lives back together as best they can. King does such a great job of writing this as a comic book come to literary life, that when I was reading it, I had the same feeling of "so much damned fun" that I get when I'm reading a really well written/drawn comic book. He understands the pacing needed to make a good comic, and translates it perfectly into literary form. As more of what is happening in the background of the story and more is revealed to what the whole story was about, that feeling just continued to grow. Everything about this book is just "so much damned fun"! However, the great thing about this book is that King has written it in such a way that even those who are not fans of comic books could enjoy it.I'd really like to see more form Tom King in the future. If this is what we're getting from him on his literary debut, I'm anxious to see what he can do next.